Blood Repaid
by Stefynae
Summary: Six perspectives of those that have come across the cursed pieces of Aztec gold--and those who must take them back.


The following is a series of six drabbles, admitted to the "882 Ways to Appease the Heathen Gods" challenge on livejournal (email or leave me a review if you want the link).  

Each is unique, and I wish to share them with you.  See if you can find the significance in them—what they relate to, who the main character is, etc.  But most of all, enjoy them.  For they are enjoyable.

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**_Brothel_**

It is cold, more so than normal. But she doesn't care as she sits by the window, open to the night air, gazing out to sea.  
  


It had been so long. She never understood why he disappeared. Why he never came back for her…like he said he would.  
  


All that she had left of him was a gold coin.  
  


"A token of our love," as he described it. Now she laughs as one who has finally been defeated laughs. The coin falls through her fingers, over her palms. A breeze rustles what's left of her curtains, sending an icy chill down her spine. She looks up, squints out into the harbor, notices a dense fog and a black ship. Her breath catches in her throat.  
  


Maybe he's finally come back for her. Despite her excitement she remains calm, waiting.  
  


Twenty minutes later there is a knock on the door.  
  


"You've come back," she says. "You've come back for me." A single tear falls down her cheek. He sighs and shakes his head.  
  


"Not fer you, lass." He motions toward her hand, where the coin lay.   
  


She doesn't understand.  
  


She never will.

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**_Wavepool_****__**

You wouldn't believe the treasure you'd find beneath the surface of the ocean, whether put there deliberately or not.   
  


I found mine one fine afternoon; a gold coin knocked out of a pirate's hand, come to join me beneath the waves. I kept it on a chain around my neck for near ten years before my luck turned bad.  
  


I sure gave them a hell of a ride, dodging all over that ocean before they finally caught me.  
  


They thought I was a damned dolphin, until they pulled me aboard.  
  


"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," one of them sputtered, communicating the shock that the others could not.   
  


Their captain demanded my treasure. I told him he was clumsy to have dropped it.  
  


He told me I was clumsy to have kept it.

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**_Not to Be_**

They would call him a genius, after he was dead. After his scribblings, marks, sonnets, and plays were published in English textbooks for elementary and high school students to supposedly learn from. They would moan and complain, "please, not HIM again, why can't he just speak ENGLISH!?"  
  


He smiled to himself. Perhaps he was a genius.   
  


He dipped his quill and spread the ink along his parchment, stopping every so often to reload.  
  


Perhaps, though, it was the coin.  
  


He had found it on the cobblestone street outside the master shipbuilder's shop. It seemed to have called to him; he was mesmerized by it.  
  


He fingered it as he wrote; trying to extract whatever magnificent power it held.  
  


'This above all,—to thine own self be true;'  
  


Well in that case, he thought, I suppose I am a genius.

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**_Red_**

He stood huddled behind the tree, waiting impatiently for his victim to arrive. He couldn't believe HE had gotten a hold of one of the coins. He couldn't believe that HE even really existed.  
  


A thump, a jingle.  
  


He stifled a cough as soot rose through the room, tickling his nose and burning his eyes. The fat man stood up, bag in hand, dusting himself off.  
  


The pirate jumped from behind the tree, pulling out his cutlass in defense, not believing his eyes.  
  


He shrieked. "He DOES exist."  
  


The man opposite of him stared blankly, unbelieving as well. He had heard about the cursed pirates, but he thought they were just stories.  
  


"They DO exist," he whispered, just before fainting.

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**_Iceberg_**

I had been told the story many times by my father—of my great-great-great grandfather who had been a British soldier at Port Royale. He had, unfortunately, stumbled upon a gold coin that was to lead to his eventual death by a band of undead pirates.  
  


My father said it was bad luck.  
  


I hardly believed it.  
  


And now I float in the same waters he did when they threw him to Davy Jones, only I am much farther north. In the freezing north Atlantic, as it were.  
  


There weren't enough lifeboats.  
  


I did not used to believe in the stories, or the bad luck. I had hoped that if they were true, the luck died with him.  
  


Apparently not.

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**_Amen_**

_He who taketh from this chest shall suffer among the living as the undead…_  
  


That's what that damned thing had said, had warned. He didn't know what it meant at the time; he was too mesmerized by the prize to care.  
  


And now, after spending all but one of those pieces, he has to get them all back. By force.  
  


Barbossa sighed as a young man tried to defend his house, his honor, and his life. He managed to plunge a sword deep in the captain's side while he wasn't looking.  
  


'If we can' have it all,' he thought, 'at least we can' flounder on account of not payin' attention…' He retrieved the blade from his side, returning it to its master.  
  


The captain had to chase the young man's head down before it woke the baby. He took it into the study, dropped it on the desk. Went to the bookshelf, found the coin.  
  


Between the pages of the Holy Bible.

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NOTE:  For more on this final drabble, see the story _Ambrosia of the Sea_, by yours truly, under my _stories authored_ page.

Please review.


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